Just Visiting
by Ryuuen Chou
Summary: An introspective look into where the ever-smiling telepath goes when the world becomes too much to bear. A more sensitive side of Schuldig. PG-13 for slight language and mature/dark themes.


Just Visiting  
  
By Ryuuen  
  
Warnings: Mature/dark themes.  
  
A/N: I'm venting through story. Just a short Schuldig POV piece. How does the cool, self-confident Mastermind deal with his sorrow? This is a very introspective piece; the way I think Schuldig would deal with his pain. It'll be surprising to some of you, I'm sure. This piece originally went along with a poem, which I'll include, and had the same name as it, but I changed it because the title didn't fit. Please read and review.  
  
Song is "Blue Mask" by Koyasu Takehito.  
  
The song Schuldig quotes in the third part of the fic is "Ijiwaru" ("Meanie"), the Primera single from the Magic Knight Rayearth Original Song Book. The translation is by Fuu.  
  
Crying in the Corner  
  
Poem by Ryuuen  
  
This is the same place I've been to before  
  
same light, same hole in the door.  
  
Same safety, same pain, the same as always  
  
same plushes, same blood on the floor.  
  
Clutching tight to all I can hold  
  
I'm crying, can't you see me?  
  
Ruin me, make me hurt...  
  
...it doesn't matter anymore.  
  
Can't you hear me screaming?  
  
Can't you hear me, crying in the corner?  
  
Can't you see me crying...  
  
...screaming in my pain..?   
  
Just Visiting  
  
---------------  
  
~"On the wall is a portrait of a poet. On the wall it rests, lost in the past."~  
  
Here I am. Here again. Same old, same old. I'm surprised no one has found this place yet, figured out where it is that I dissappear to when the going gets too tough. I always come here when things get too hard... when I feel like I can't go on. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want sympathy. Living with the people I do, you get used to not having sympathy, not needing it. I mean, come on. Farfarello's idea of sympathy is to poke you with sharp objects until the pain goes away. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn't. Nagi just ignores pain. I don't think the kid even knows what sympathy is. And Brad... Brad wouldn't know sympathy if it came up and slapped him in the face. No, I don't want sympathy. Don't need it.  
  
So I come here. I blast loud, sad, fast rock music out of the speakers like there's no tomorrow, until it makes the pain go away. I hold myself and sit in the center of the room, letting the tears come, just like I used to, before this place was abandoned. Sometimes it's enough. Sometimes I crave more, someone to hold me and tell me it'll be okay, like my mother used to before they killed her. Something.. someone, to hold on to until there's nothing left but me and them and blessed silence.  
  
Now the singer is saying something about how bad it hurts to be rejected. Damn right. Only they don't know what it's like to be rejected from the human race.  
  
~"No one, no one; I live alone. No one, no one; for some reason, we are alike."~  
  
There's a stuffed bear on that small table. I think the head's nearly fallen off. I can't remember how many times the dust-covered plush has been thrown against the wall in abject frustration. I can't remember how many times I cried over it, trying vainly to put it back together like I wish I could put back together the shattered pieces of my existance. Esstet stole everything from me. Brad stole whatever I had left. They threw my life out the window.. "to make sure I wouldn't turn on them," they called it. "To make sure I would have no place to go," they said. I heard it in my mind. They killed anything, anyone, that would make me want to return here... but somehow they missed this place. Somehow they missed my sanctuary. What has become my sanctuary.  
  
It makes me angry to remember the way this room used to be; full of fragile hopes, dreams not yet fulfilled. I used to hate this place for it's "girly"ness. Now I hate it for the dried blood on the carpet, the life that was destroyed here.  
  
~"All that remains inside me are nasty memories. They mix with red blood and turn into hatred."~  
  
It would be so easy to say that I hate Brad, that I hate all of them, for what they've done to me. Only, somehow, I don't. I think... I think hate is a strong word. They ruined my life, but they spared me. Have even shown some semblence of compassion for me at times. No, I don't hate them. But I do hate what they have done. They didn't just ruin my life, they ruined me. They ruined everything I had... and then they tore me up some more, just for the hell of it.  
  
The radio started playing a sad song. It's Japanese. I wonder if anyone else hears it. It's a song about unrequited love. Typical. I would sneer if I had the energy or emotion left.. but here, I have no mask of calm. What is the song saying now? It says, 'Itsumo sou ne shiran furi ne.. soba ni itemo anata ijiwaru...' ...as best I can tell, that means "It's always like this.. you pretend you don't know. Even when I'm with you, you're mean to me." It must be nice to have such mundane worries as whether your crush likes you or not.  
  
Listening to songs like this, I wonder what it's like to be normal. Maybe if I was normal I would be standing here, with Her begging me to do karaoke with her to some song or other. Normal... I wonder what it's like to have parents who love you, to live somewhere without being eclipsed. I wonder what it's like not to wake up every morning, just living your whole life waiting for it to end. Waiting for the curtain to be drawn. Sometimes... I just wonder.  
  
~"No world, no world; I have no world to call home. No words, no words; no words can express my sorrow. No one, no one; I live alone. No one, no one; I am far seperated from my past."~  
  
Here in my sanctuary, the music drowns out all of those people's voices. It makes the screams and cries disappear from my tortured mind, and lays to rest the spirits of those who used to live here. I wonder if my spirit is among them...  
  
Tears fall from my eyes, like glass. They fall to the carpet to mingle with the old, dried blood that has stained this floor. Why have I been cursed? I want an answer, but none comes. No one ever answers the fallen angel's cries. I wonder if that's what I am.. a fallen angel.. or am I a devil? There is no one to answer me. Maybe I drove them all away. Maybe they thought that the smiling demon didn't need anyone. I think I smile too much. It makes people think I don't need anyone. I don't need anyone. Or maybe I do.  
  
I want to tear this place apart. I want to destroy everything. No, no I don't. I want to make this place special, and preserve it as best I can, so that someday, I can show someone what true pain is. I can show them this place, and they will know what true suffering is. Or maybe I won't show anyone. Maybe.  
  
So many maybes... it all disappears in an instant, anyway. Life is in the blink of an eye.  
  
~"If I wear a blue mask, I can dance in the past. Someday I will be able to put this all behind me and vanish."~  
  
I wonder if anyone knows how painful it is to be a part of the world. Maybe they, in their empty lives, don't even notice. After all, most people live entirely empty lives now. I don't think they even care about anyone besides themselves. I'd sound old if I said I remembered a time before that... but I don't anyway, so it doesn't matter.  
  
Someday I might not need to escape to this place.. but I would anyway. This is my sanctuary, the only remaining piece I have of my past. Baby-pink curtains and bedspread, a teddy bear that's been nearly destroyed, a lamp, a mirror with stickers on it... they all represent things I lost, or never had. Innocence, childhood, sympathy, compassion... they are the things that made this place. The spirit of it, if you'll excuse the cliche.  
  
But there's blood on the floor. There's no such thing as complete innocence.  
  
~"On the wall is a portrait of my happy family. Unable to break the curse, they remain trapped inside."~  
  
I guess this is my punishment; a prison of my own design. I might never escape this place. It might kill me. This is the punishment for my sins. I wonder if I am the only one with such a prison. I mean, of course I'm not. Everyone has their prisons. This is mine. Yet, in some perverse way, it's also a reward. I can come here. That's my reward. I can come back and let the souls of the departed comfort me as I cry into the sounds loud enough to shake the room, letting the voices in my head gradually die down until there's nothing left and I can go back to living.  
  
I'll never understand people. I'll never be redeemed of my sins. I'll never see innocence again. All these things I'll never experiance... I understand people's motivations, I understand their minds, and how to get into them, and how to manipulate them.. but people as a group, I doubt I will ever understand. My crimes are too great; I can never be forgiven of them. All innocence died here, in this pink child's paradise.  
  
I think too much. I'll turn the volume up some more.  
  
~"No more, no more; I break into tears. No more, no more; I return to the earth. No world, no world; there is no happiness in this world. No words, no words; there are also no words of love."~  
  
After a time, I flip off the CD, hearing the music fade into an almost frightening silence. I look to the bed, knowing that there will never be anyone sleeping in it again. Wiping my eyes free of tears, I walk to the pink-covered bed, feeling fresh tears stinging my eyes. I lift the stuffed bear to my lips, giving it a kiss goodbye, just like I do every time.  
  
"Hey," I say through tear-blurred vision, "I'll be back soon, sis', but I gotta go now.. see you."  
  
I put the bear back on the table, blinking back the painful tears even though I feel as though I will never smile again. I turn my back on the room, which is empty save for myself and the ghosts of the past.. the ghosts of my family.  
  
Opening the door to leave that house, I whisper without looking back, "goodnight, Mom, Dad.. little sister."  
  
~"No one, no one; I live alone. No one, no one; I am far seperated from my past."~  
  
"Where were you?" Brad asks from his chair in the living room, not even bothering to look up from his newspaper as I walk in the door. I sigh, shrugging off my shoes and jacket, trying to wipe the sad look off my face.  
  
After a moment, I reply: "Just visiting."  
  
~"No one, no one; I live alone. No one, no one; for some reason, we are alike."~  
  
~ende~ 


End file.
